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Tom Peters' 9 Items for the Sales Force

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Tom Peters' newest book, the Little BIG Things, is well worth reading. Recently, on his blog, he posted a more complete version of the Credo he included in the book. Several of the items which, if not sales or sales force competencies, are certainly crucial sales requirements (they are abbreviated here - follow the link to Tom's article for his complete descriptions):

Tom Peters' 9 Items for the Sales Force

Tom Peters' newest book, the Little BIG Things, is well worth reading. Recently, on his blog, he posted a more complete version of the Credo he included in the book. Several of the items which, if not sales or sales force competencies, are certainly crucial sales requirements (they are abbreviated here - follow the link to Tom's article for his complete descriptions):

• Excellent Listeners
• Unwavering Commitment
• Development
• Positive Evaluation Process
• Mastery
• Encourage Failures
• Accept Blame
• Celebrate Successes
• Excellence as a Principal Benchmark

Tom had dozens of items on the list and an argument can be made to include more of them as staples of the sales force but these are a really good start. If you were to pick just one to work on first, which one would you choose? Answer using this poll.

I'll let you know which one mine would be.....

You thought I would pick Evaluation, didn't you! Nope. Unwavering Commitment (whatever it takes). That results in Mastery - and excellence. Then we knock off the rest of them and we're celebrating successes everywhere we look!

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Article Tags: dave kurlan, sales competencies, tom peters



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Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Submitting Articles - Hi John - I have over 950 contributing authors to my website right now. Some of them are bigger names like Donald Trump, Zig Ziglar, and Tom Peters but most of them are business coaches, marketing consultants, human resources experts, etc. They write articles for my site and we expose them as experts to our entrepreneurial community!
Re: Does birth order influence the desire to start a business? - I am the eldest in a polygamous family. In Africa where I come from, we are allowed to marry many wives. My mother is the first wife among six others. I am the first born and I am into business and all my other 22 siblings are business people too apart from the second born who is in the Police Force.
Re: Does birth order influence the desire to start a business? - [quote="ideasuniversity":2rddqi21]I am the eldest in a polygamous family. In Africa where I come from, we are allowed to marry many wives. My mother is the first wife among six others. I am the first born and I am into business and all my other 22 siblings are business people too apart from the second born who is in the Police Force.[/quote:2rddqi21] Of your siblings - how many are girls and how many boys? Are girls allowed to be businesspeople, or must they stay at home?


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